I'm a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and have written for a wide
range of newspapers, magazines and websites. My books include "FDR's Folly," "Bully Boy," "Wilson's War," "Greatest Emancipations," "Risk, Ruin & Riches," "Gnomes of Tokyo" and "The Triumph of Liberty." I graduated from the University of Chicago in economic history. Research has taken me to England, Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, India and China. Milton Friedman wrote that my "analysis is thoroughly documented, relying on an impressive variety of popular and academic literature both contemporary and historical." Thomas Sowell: "a warning of what can happen when leaders are chosen for their charm, charisma and rhetoric." David Landes: "Powell is one tough-minded historian, willing to let the chips fall where they may." Paul Johnson: "Jim Powell is a man of great energy, determination, obstinancy and courage, and all these qualities have gone into his work." John Stossel: "A terrific read."

Barack Obama: The Anti Economic Growth President

Since Obama is a Columbia grad, a Harvard Law grad and a Nobel Prize winner, he’s clearly a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that he has pursued these policies precisely because they’re anti-growth. One could counter that in particular circumstances the president might be justified, but making it harder for private sector employers to grow and hire people in every one of these cases marks him as the anti-growth president.

This is incredible, considering how long people suffered without any sustained material improvement in their lives. Living standards for ordinary people didn’t change much in ancient Egypt for some 3,000 years. “The relationship between the king and his subjects,” wrote historian Toby Wilkinson, “was based on coercion and fear…royal power was absolute, and life was cheap.” Historian J.P. Bury, referring to ancient Greece, reported that “No period in their history could be described as an age of optimism.”

As for Rome, Bury said: “There was no change in the condition of life likely to suggest a brighter view of human existence. With the loss of freedom, pessimism increased.” The prevailing view in medieval Europe was that whatever happened was the result of divine intervention. During the Renaissance, people looked back to ancient authors for wisdom. They believed life would never again be as good as it was in Greece and Rome.

But economies began to stir as individual property rights developed. England led the way. Magna Carta (1215) established the principle that property owners must be protected from arbitrary expropriation, which kings liked to do from time to time. This principle, intended to protect big landowners, was extended to everyone. England had active real estate markets at least as early as 1375. Small landowners engaged in sales, mortgages and leases. As the influential common law judge Edward Coke quipped, “the house of an Englishman is to him as his castle.” The English legal scholar Frederic Maitland reported that “A woman can hold land, make a will, make a contract, sue and be sued. She sues and is sued in person without the interposition of a guardian. A married woman will sometimes appear as her husband’s attorney.”

During the 17th century, mathematicians and scientists, beginning with the Frenchman René Descartes, began to rely more on reason and observation rather than on the authority of the ancients. There was a succession of remarkable discoveries, each one leading to more. Among the noteworthy inventions of this era: a submarine (by Cornelis Drebbe, 1620), a slide rule (by William Oughtred, 1624), a blood transfusion procedure (by Jean-Baptiste Denys, 1625), a steam turbine (by Giovanni Branca,1629), an adding machine (by Blaise Pascal, 1642), a barometer (by Evangelista Torricelli, 1644), an air pump (by Otto von Guericke, 1650), a reflecting telescope (by Isaac Newton, 1668), champagne (by Dom Pérignon, 1670), a pocket watch (by Christian Huygens, 1675), a universal joint (by Robert Hooke, 1676), a pressure cooker (by Denis Papin, 1679) and a steam pump (by Thomas Savery, 1698). All this suggested endless possibilities.

In 1750, the 23-year-old Frenchman Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot became perhaps the first person to articulate the idea of progress. He gave a talk at the Sorbonne, titled “A Philosophical Review Of The Successive Advances Of The Human Mind.” He told how “manners are softened, the human mind is enlightened, and the total mass of human kind, through calm and upheaval, good fortune and bad, advances ever, though slowly, toward greater perfection.”

A key breakthrough in economic understanding came when the shy Scotsman Adam Smith wrote An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations (1776). Until his time, the principal means of acquiring wealth were thought to be conquest and robbery. That’s a major reason why rulers were always starting wars.

Smith showed how people could create unlimited amounts of wealth peacefully. He developed an idea expressed by the French thinker Bernard Mandeville who, in 1714, had written The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits. The idea was that when people pursue their self‑interest by trying to make a profit (a private vice), they must provide something other people consider useful and are willing to pay for (a public benefit). Peaceful trade takes place when each party voluntarily exchanges something they have for something they want more, and both parties benefit. Smith used the word “progress” many times throughout his great book. For example, he referred to “the natural progress of opulence,” “the progress of cities and towns” and “the progress of the greater part of Europe.”

Smith’s most famous lines: “[a typical investor] intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

Our Founders risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for liberty and all its blessings – not least, unlimited human progress. For instance, Benjamin Franklin, in a 1788 letter, wrote: “I have been long impressed with the improvements in philosophy, morals and even the conveniences of common living, by the invention and acquisition of new and useful utensils and instruments. Invention and improvement are prolific and beget more of their kind.” Thomas Jefferson added, “Where this progress will stop, no one can say.”

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